In the seventh episode of Whims and Fancies, we present to you, The Box by Naval Ravikant, a surreal story that raises a profound concept of solipsism. 

This episode is in collaboration with The Story O'Clock Podcast.

Naval Ravikant is a very popular Indian-American entrepreneur and investor. He runs a short-form podcast at Nav.al and Spearhead.co where he discusses philosophy, business, and investing. Naval's tweets, essays, and interviews on wealth and happiness are published as a book called 'The Almanack of Naval Ravikant'. It was curated by Eric Jorgeson.

Introductory Music by Ruben Joseph

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In the sixth episode of Whims and Fancies, we present to you, Wit inspirations of the two-year-olds by Mark Twain, a comical story about how language and the strictness of parenting change over time. Something that was incredibly offensive several hundred years ago could be extremely laughable and harmless today. Something that could get a child in serious trouble back then could be completely overlooked today.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens better known by his pen name, Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Twain was born shortly after a visit by Halley's Comet, and he predicted that he would "go out with it", too. He died the day after the comet returned. He was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age", and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature".

Introductory Music by Ruben Joseph

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In the fifth episode, we present to you a humorous narrative "My Financial Career" by Stephen Leacock. He was the best-known English-speaking humorists in the world in the early 20th century. The story is one of the most notable works by Stephen Leacock and will amuse you by exposing the narrator’s tension and stupid actions inside the bank. There is much fun and laughter when the narrator makes a clown of himself through his words and behavior.

Introductory Music by Ruben Joseph.

In the fourth episode, we present to you an excerpt from The Alchemist. In this excerpt, Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy, embarks on a long path of working for a crystal merchant so as to make enough money to fulfill his personal legend and go to the pyramids, after having a recurring dream of finding a treasure there. Originally written in Portuguese, the novel became a widely translated international bestseller and has been translated to more than 70 languages. 

Paulo Coelho in this enchanting story shows that how your journey to your destiny is as important as the destiny itself.

Introductory music by Ruben Joseph

Background Music: Calcutta Sunset by E's Jammy Jams(Available on YouTube Audio Library)

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In the third episode, we present to you, The Night Train at Deoli, by Ruskin Bond, a tale of adolescent infatuation presented with great sensitivity. Woven against the backdrop of Deoli, the story represents the essence of the author's romanticism by representing a strange meeting artistically. The unspoken words and the eloquent conversation, the pale beauty of the girl and the light in her eyes when she meets the author, the narrator's impulse to take her with him and the intense eagerness to see her, and finally the unknown destiny of the girl, all add to the feeling of romance.

Ruskin Bond's writing feels like the rhythmic splatter of rain on your window. His works indeed represent the prime of literature in India.

Introductory music by Ruben Joseph

Background Music: Drops of Earth by Aakash Gandhi (Available on YouTube Audio Library)

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In the second episode, we present to you a classic of the Gothic fiction genre and one of Edgar Allan Poe's best-known short stories, The Tell-Tale Heart. He is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. Poe was the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a first-person narrative told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of the narrator’s sanity while simultaneously describing a murder the narrator committed. The victim was an old man with a filmy pale blue "vulture-eye", as the narrator calls it. 

Introductory music by Ruben Joseph

Background music: They can feel you by Hainbach (Available on YouTube Audio Library)

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In this first episode, we present to you a classic Christmas story by O Henry., The gift of the Magi. His favorite subject was the ordinary people in New York City.

The story tells of a young husband and wife and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money.

Introductory music by Ruben Joseph

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Hello and welcome to Whims and Fancies.

The hosts of this podcast are Nishant and Maithri.

Nishant is an average university student with exactly 6 brain cells' worth of artistic faculties.

And Maithri is an undergraduate bitten by a creative bug.

Stories are medicine. They have such power; they do not require that we do, be or act anything - we need only listen. We promise you a great listening experience. We'll be joined by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, O Henry, all master storytellers. So tune in every week for a great story.

Until next time.